Galactic Civilizations II news!

For the past year we've been pretty focused on getting Elemental: War of Magic released. With its release, our minds are turning back towards Galactic Civilizations to see what we can do. Awhile back I made a journal asking users what small updates people would like to see and lots of users came through with great suggestions. So we're going to be starting to look through those to see what's next on the agenda.

For those wondering about a future Galactic Civilizations III, right now, our plans for now will be to continuesupporting the existing Galactic Civilizations II -- no GalCiv III is in the works right now.

I'd like to see something that shows how well a civilization or planet is doing with graphical feedback like cities get bigger in the Civ series (obviously planets can't get bigger) or how you can see trade ships in the Total War series trading between ports.

I know it involves a big effort and it probably won't happen, but just thought I'd throw it out there.

For those wondering about a future Galactic Civilizations III, right now, our plans for now will be to continue supporting the existing Galactic Civilizations II -- no GalCiv III is in the works right now.

This is excellent news. I feel there are plenty of things that need to be fixed in GalCiv2 before giving up on it which is what in effect would happen when and if there is a GalCiv3.

In particular I'd like to see work done on all three versions of the game, DL and DA, as well as ToA because I believe that each version does indeed have it's benefits and is worthy of continued support.

The kinds of things I would like to see fixed are really just longstanding bugs like the ability to upgrade ships and purchase buildings while bankrupt as well as the bug that allows production to continue while bankrupt by using focus from research. I know these bugs still exist in DL and DA although they may have been addressed in ToA.

I'm sure ToA has it's share of problems as well although my experience with that version is still lacking. I do eventually look forward to playing ToA but feel the need to master DA first.

I would also like to see the extreme speed nerfing that exists in DA relaxed somewhat. I understand the motivation for having introduced it in the first place but I feel the change had no real effect other than to be an annoyance to the player and is a detriment to an otherwise excellent version of the game.

... I would also like to see the extreme speed nerfing that exists in DA relaxed somewhat. I understand the motivation for having introduced it in the first place but I feel the change had no real effect other than to be an annoyance to the player and is a detriment to an otherwise excellent version of the game.

Holy mixed feelings, Batman! I was a serious speed junkie and balked hard at the 'nerfing.' But eventually I had more than a few games where the snail's-pace movement on Gigantic maps actually added fun, not least because it made some sort of sense that an interstellar war fleet might well see its original causus belli fade into history well before it arrived at its destination.

Not that GC2 has been clear about calendar or communication mechanics...

I was a serious speed junkie and balked hard at the 'nerfing.' But eventually I had more than a few games where the snail's-pace movement on Gigantic maps actually added fun

I'm not looking for a dramatic change of character. DA is what it is and the speed nerfage is a part of that.

However I was hopeful that there could be some amount of "accomodation" for gigantic galaxy games where I have literally thousands of ships chugging across the galaxy at 5 parsecs/turn. The processor requirements of this kind of movement alone get to be pretty extreme.

The speed nerfage is a combination of component size, miniaturization and component cost. I'd be happy with a reasonably priced way to get a speed 10 constructor. I don't think that the ability to build such a ship would be a tremendous change to gameplay mechanics and I also think it should be clear by now that the reason for which the speed nerfage was introduced, i.e. the ability of the human player to conquer an AI opponent before the AI has time to respond, is not in fact accomplished by this change. Like I said the real effect of the change was to merely add to player tedium which in my mind is the wrong way to go. There's enough tedium in the game without slowing effective ship speed down to 5 parsecs/turn.

I'm merely requesting that DA and DL receive their fair share of bug fixes and not be totally ignored.

Certainly I assume that ToA as the "latest" version will undoubtedly receive the most attention, however I still maintain that DA and DL are legitimate game play choices that should not be totally superseded by the mere existence of ToA.

Here's hoping for a fix to asteroid mining; right now it's not worth bothering with due to needing more than a game year per asteroid to fully exploit the mine. This is more of a balance issue than a technical issue, but maybe the higher mining techs should reduce construction time or allow multiple modules per ship? Even two or three modules on a ship could make mining cost effective.

Some suggestions to UI. I think this game needs improvements in this area, if any, right now.

Ship and planet list.1. Ship and planet in the list should be selected when one of them is selected on the main map.2. These windows should be on top after quitting another window until player close them (these windows should be work similar to SoaSE empire tree).

Tooltips.3. There should be more detailed tooltips all around the game. For example ship tooltip with attacks and defenses, ship destionation etc.

Survey messages.4. Please, replace the annoying popups about survey operations with simple notifications on the right side.

Ship movement.5. The game should provide a movement command for ships. Pressing the appropriate button player should see where the ship can go (similar to Civ V solution for this).

Better rally point window.6. The map on this window is unuseful. Player should manage rally points on main map.

I agree about the rally points. We could use an overlay on the main map that highlights possible origin points for a rally point, and a set of arrows along the intended path. The rally point menu itself should be roll-down (from the top of the screen) and transparent so as not to obscure the main map too much, and the origin points and arrows should update depending on which RP you currently have selected. It would be nice to be able to type the first few letters of a rally point name to select it from the list, gives a reason to change the default RP name.

It is asking a bit much, but as soon as there's more than about six rally points it becomes a pain to figure out where each of them is in relation to where you're looking right now (an off-screen arrow would be helpful!) not to mention you have to scroll through that teeny little box to select 'em.

As far as the AI goes, there's some work needed with research strategy. The AI either spends too much time on supportive technologies such as defences, engines, larger hulls, logistics and miniaturisation or too much time on weapons. It needs to strike a balance according to the current situation. There's no point getting too far ahead of the competition in one area while lacking in another area.

For example, my strategy is to first get to the point where I can fit two weapons to a fighter. It's pretty economical to build ships with this configuration, and gives enough military rating for other races to leave me alone. At this point if I don't need more military I stop building fighters. Then, as I'm usually playing Terrans, I go for the integrity grid and fit one per heavy fighter, giving them an advantage even against fighters with better firepower. Next, I develop better sensors so that I can spot an incoming fleet. Yes, I know I could just build Eyes of the Universe, but I don't need such a ridiculous crutch. Ideally after that I go for medium hulls and better weaponry, and enough of a logistics score that I can fit three heavy fighters with a frigate.

The reason why I don't immediately research planetary invasion is because even if I could build enough transports and fill them quickly enough, chances are my heavy fighters (in squadrons of three) will be easily swept aside by enemy frigates. I need to have my own capital ships and enough logistics to fend off the inevitable counterattack.

After that, a little improvement in each area is necessary. If an enemy is using missile weapons, then I'm going to research missile defences, but I'm not going to use the spare space on each hull to spam early missile defences, it's a waste of production. Unless I'm desperate, I would prefer to use a pair of PD Combo modules on a capital ship, or Telepathic Defence if it's available.

The scramble for the end of the weapons tree is understandable but predictable. By the time an AI has researched one of those, I'm already likely to have the best possible defence against it. There's nothing wrong with abandoning that first weapons tree and, while catching up to that level of weaponry in another tree, using the old weapons. Sustained missile fire will burn out missile defences and damage ships better than primitive beam weapons. When the AI abruptly switches to using its new plasma-based weapons, suddenly I'm the one having to adapt.

I would think that, for the purpose of filling a 16 or 24-MSA, the speed boosters on additional MSBs, allowing for +16 speed in a sweet spot that only takes a turn or two to reach, would be sufficient, without costing you significant additional ships, and without costing you extra time or money in engines on each ship.

This news is good. Most if almost all gaming companies would come up with a few patches and move on. The fact that you are coming back to this game to polish it is excellent. I bought the Ultimate Edition months ago, so I will be looking forward to additional patches that will make this game shine even more.

Please *DO* fix the long overdue situation where Tiles terrain naming is screwed when we scan through them (planets) in the usual sequence.

And -- hopefully -- begin work on early development steps of an entirely new GCIII version (Now, that the behemot Civ-5 is out, i think StarDock *must* hit the gaming market with its modernized flagship product once more, asap!!).

Besides making gameplay tweaks, there is at least one highly annoying bug remaining: loading a custom scenario (or one of the scenarios that came with the game) in Twilight unfailingly causes a CTD. I'm really surprised this hasn't been fixed before now. Also, in Twilight, the Dread Lords mega event still sporadically causes a crash, though not all of the time.

It's nice to know you haven't abandoned us GalCiv players. Keep it up.

This is great news. Twilight of the Arnor is still one of my favorite games.

Here are my suggestions for future patches:

1) There are many spelling/grammatical errors in the text of the game that could be fixed.

2) There's a problem with the priority of dialogue tags that affects the in-game conversations. As a result, many of the prescripted exchanges between particular races (e.g. Drengin making fun of Torian) are never seen, being replaced by the generic alternatives instead.

3) The enemy AI should make use of a wider variety of modules in its ship designs. For example, why doesn't it ever equip ships with upgrades that benefit the entire fleet, like the Arceans' Advanced Fire Control module?

4) I've noticed my opponents are constantly bribing each other to go to war with one another. How come nobody ever offers me money to attack somebody? I can put these offers on the table myself, but I think the computer should come forward with them too.

5) Does the AI ever build terror stars? I haven't witnessed it yet.. If it doesn't, it should.

6) Along the same lines of leveling the playing field for AI and player, there should be an optional rule change allowing AI players to win diplomatic victories. I think it would add an interesting new dimension to the game.

7) The AI neglects researching some really critical race-specific techs. For example, I don't notice the Korx ever bothering to research the Mercenery Academy or that building that gives you persistent trade routes.